Applications, such as messaging applications and web browser applications, can be installed in computing devices. A user can control and interact with the applications to perform various functionality. For example, a user can operate a web browser application to browse web pages, and the user can operate a messaging application to send and receive email messages.
Applications installed in a computing device often communicate with each other. For example, one application can provide content or a message to another application for processing. Some applications can communicate with other applications by sharing files between the applications.
Additionally some computing device operating systems provide an application programming interface (API) that facilitates communication between applications. For example, an application can issue an API call to the operating system requesting the operating system to provide data to a destination application. The API call can specify the destination application and the data to be provided to the destination application. However, when the API call is used to perform communication between applications, the operating system often causes the destination application to become active in the foreground of the client device's display. In this regard, the user interface for the destination application can switch from being in the background to being the active user interface in the foreground of the display device. This action can be distracting and confusing to the user, especially when an application communicates with several other applications in a relatively short period of time.